Should I store entire objects, or pointers to objects in containers?

Question

Designing a new system from scratch. I\'ll be using the STL to store lists and maps of certain long-live objects.

Question: Should I ensure my objects have copy co

Answer 1

You seem to have a good grasp of the difference. If the objects are small and easy to copy, then by all means store them.

If not, I would think about storing smart pointers (not auto_ptr, a ref counting smart pointer) to ones you allocate on the heap. Obviously, if you opt for smart pointers, then you can't store temp stack allocated objects (as you have said).

@Torbjörn makes a good point about slicing.